Arizona and Stanford, teams with marquee names but facing plenty of with questions, face off in the quarterfinals of the Pac-10 tournament on Thursday night, with the Cardinal a 2-point betting favorites on WagerWeb.com.
Let's start with No. 11 Stanford (24-6), which knows it is in the 2008 NCAA tournament. Yet one could argue the Cardinal need a win tonight as much as bubble team Arizona. There are worries that Stanford's back-to-back losses to the L.A. schools last week could have a lingering effect.
"It's huge," Stanford point guard Mitch Johnson said. "We definitely want to get the winning feeling back. We do not want to go into the NCAA tournament as losing three games. That's not going to be a good feeling."
In addition, a win tonight likely would probably preserve Stanford's spot as a top-four seed in the NCAA tournament. As such, the Cardinal would spend the first weekend instate in Anaheim. But a loss to Arizona could drop Stanford to a No. 5 seed, forced to
play its first-round game in Omaha or Little Rock or Birmingham - and on a three-game losing streak.
Last year, Stanford carried a two-game losing streak into the NCAA tournament and then played one of its worst games of the season in losing to Louisville in the first round.
The Cardinal have not won the Pac-10 tournament since 2004 and have been eliminated in its first game each of the last two seasons.Then there's Arizona (19-13), which could need a victory tonight just to get to the Big Dance, especially after losing seven of its final 10 regular-season games. The seventh-seeded Wildcats looked good in beating Oregon State 87-56 on Wednesday in the first round. But they were swept this year by Stanford, albeit by five total points.
On Jan. 17 at Stanford, the Wildcats could not take control despite erasing a 33-26 halftime deficit and lost 56-52. Jerryd Bayless scored only nine points while he struggled with shoe issues. Bayless had 31 on Feb. 16 at home, but a final shot by Chase Budinger
was blocked by Robin Lopez, and Stanford held on for a 67-66 win.
"We've been close to beating them twice," Arizona interim coach Kevin O'Neill said. "We're going to have to play great on the defensive end. If you finish second in this league this year, you're damn good."
That's the bad news. The good news: the Cardinal have never defeated the Wildcats in the conference tournament, losing all four meetings.
Brook Lopez, who leads Stanford in scoring at 18.9 points, is averaging 20.0 points and 8.3 rebounds in four career games against the Wildcats.
The Cardinal held opponents to just 39.5 percent shooting, and limited Arizona to only 37.4 percent shooting in the two victories.
Jordan Hill led five Arizona players in double figures on Wednesday with 16 points, and hit all seven of his shots from the floor. Hill is averaging 15.8 points on 79.5 percent shooting in his last five games.
The winner of this game will play the winner between No. 21 Washington State and Oregon in the semifinals on Friday.
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